Sunwalk Group, a Chinese multinational corporation, has made plans to invest $2 billion in Pakistan’s communications industry, with a focus on installing optical fibre connection (OFC). The company has already made a $5 million investment and will next install 5000 km of OFC.
The declaration was made during a meeting on Tuesday in Islamabad between a senior delegation from Sunwalk Group, headed by company chairman Hou Xingwang, and Syed Aminul Haque, the federal minister for information technology and telecommunications. The team told the federal minister that Sunwalk Group intends to gradually deploy OFC over a 100,000 km2 area in Pakistan during the meeting. A Telecommunication Infrastructure Provider (TIP) licence in Pakistan has previously been obtained by the Chinese telecom and technology business Sunwalk (Pvt) Ltd.
The minister was informed by the delegation that discussions with the Ministry of Railways and Highways Authority on the Right of Way (RoW) for OFC laying were ongoing. He gave the delegation the assurance that all barriers to OFC laying will be quickly eliminated.
The news of this investment is important for Pakistan’s rapidly developing telecom industry. The Ministry of Railways and Highways Authority’s conversation with the ITT minister is anticipated to open the door for additional investment.